Leaders From Great Lakes States Gather in Indy

Press Release

INDIANAPOLIS – Municipal leaders from the Great Lakes states will gather here June 20-21 for a working session on taking regional legislative and policy action to help the U.S. heartland better compete in a global knowledge economy.

Participants – including Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and Great Lakes state and local officials – will key on policy recommendations in The Vital Center: A Federal-State Compact to Renew the Great Lakes Region, a report from the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

Brookings Institution is the nation’s oldest and leading public policy think tank.

The working session, hosted by Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, Mayor Bart Peterson, the Michigan Municipal League, the Indiana Association of United Ways, the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and Brookings, will be followed by a briefing of Indianapolis press, and invited business and civic leadership at 3 p.m. Thursday, June 21st, at the fifth floor conference room of Barnes and Thornburg, 11 South Meridian Street.

The Institution’s Great Lakes Economic Initiative (GLEI) is advancing a research and policy agenda promoting regional economic revitalization strategies for the 12 states that touch the Great Lakes and line the upper Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

“The states that made America a global agricultural and industrial powerhouse are struggling as they transition to a knowledge-based economy,” said John Austin, a non-resident Senior Fellow at Brookings who directs the GLEI. “By working together now, leaders from these states can leverage the regional and federal policies they need to compete in the future.”

To learn more about the Great Lakes Economic Initiative, or to read the Vital Center and related reports, go to www.brookings.edu/metro/greatlakes.

Source: The Brookings Institution